Setting Goals with Lean Thinking

by Chris Anderson

Lean is not a set of tools, a set of procedures to follow, or a series of logical steps. Lean is a thought process, a culture, and belief system. So the most important thing is how to change the thinking in your organization so that lean happens. First we need to identify our goals. For this we use position goals.

Instead of looking at how to change a situation from the outside, we examine it from the inside to discover its potential energy and find the energy flows. In other words, we need to determine the natural forces of flow or the starting point position of the situation and then use this flow to achieve the results we desire.

As we implement lean, the focus is not on the lean tools but instead our own thinking of what the customer needs, wants, and values. We look for ways to build flexibility into the system to handle the variation in customer demand instead of forcing the customer to fit their demand into our system. We look for solutions that increase flexibility and create a more agile system. Your thinking governs your performance. So, if you fail to change your thinking, you have failed to truly implement lean.

When we start with the right goals, we are working towards the right answers. The result is to end up with the right solution to the right problem. If you understand the flows inside your organization then you are half-way to thinking lean. The other half is to understand how to use those flows and the lean tools to achieve your goals. That is the power of position goals and lean thinking together.

See this and other newsletter articles at http://amt-mep.org/files/4613/7286/1307/2013-07.pdf

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